Iceland in Pictures

BON IVER “Holocene”

Beautiful shortfilm by Nabil Elderkin. All of the scenes are filmed in Iceland. I’ll help you figure out where the locations are if you are interested. Young Hilke wakes up in a traditional Icelandic turfhouse. Notice how short the beds are. That’s because we were smaller a century ago. He puts on classic rubber shoes and an Icelandic wool sweater. He then walks out on the Skeiðarársandur sand and towards the Skeiðarárjökull glacier close to Skaftafell. The lava field is probably Lakahraun close to the town of Kirkjubæjarklaustur as well as the grassy shot. He then walks through a mountain valley, probably the Dómadalur valley between the Hekla mountain and Landmannalaugar hot springs. The rocky moss slope could be just about anywhere. The hilly landscape in which he can “see for miles” is tough, but probably somewhere in the Fjallabak area. He then skips stones in between ice bergs on the famous Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon in front of the expansive Breiðamerkurjökull glacier, part of the Vatnajökull glacier. He then admires the Svartifoss waterfall which falls off of the basalt columns up on the Skaftafellsheiði plateau in the Skaftafell National Park. He then plays around a lake which I’m pretty sure is the lake you see just before arriving in Landmannalaugar. He then hikes along a moraine at the edge of the Svínafellsjökull glacier (my glacier) in Skaftafell. He stays in Skaftafell a little longer and admires the views over Skeiðarársandur from a spot in between the trees by the Bölti guesthouse. He then walks around the Sólheimasandur sand just south of the Sólheimajökull glacier (my other glacier) and plays with the Skúmur (Arctic Skua). The beautiful basalt columns that he climbs on are at the beach on the western side of the Reynisfjall mountain in Reynishverfi, close to the town of Vík. That beach also gives him a sunset view of Dyrhólaey, the mountain/island with the big hole through it. Finally he falls asleep, the end.